Online Pals/Friends

Sometimes online you can meet someone you find rather remarkable.

When I was 11, I made friends with a semi popular YouTuber. He was in his 80's making videos as a side hobby. His most viewed video was over 40 million although his subscriber count was unremarkable compared to a few videos which had went viral. YouTube had a direct message feature and we talked through the inbox. It felt like I was like speaking with my grandfather. We stopped talking when I reached high-school. He vanished. No videos had been uploaded anymore and he never responded to messages.

It sank in a couple years later that he might have passed away. There was some guilt on my end because I getting rather slow with my responses as I got older. Such is life. He was a firm believer of the afterlife, maybe we'll meet on the other side.

Anyways disregarding the above tangent, the question is simply asking if you've made any notable friendships through usage of the internet? Both inactive or active, either can be significant.

I've overall had a positive experience with internet friendships and I value the ones I have. I've had friends I've grown up with over the past decade from elementary school to college. I've kept in regular touch with 2-3 of them every single year, which I have no idea how we did that. So that would be the most notable in terms of length. I've had a lot of online friendships where we fell out of contact but I appreciate the time we got to spend together. Part of growing up is being busier but I've never measured how good a friendship was in terms of how often we talk and I think an online friendship can last a lot longer if both people are OK with that. Since I know I can always chat with them no matter how long it has been, that's all I could ask for in a friendship.

Regardless of how long I have known someone though, I know I have great online friends who I've met on PC whether that was a decade ago or in the past year, and that makes me happy and fortunate to have had such a positive experience. I truly believe online friends can be just as close as real life friends. There is the distance element of not being able to hang out in-person (at least regularly) but it's so worth working around it and still finding how to hang out and keep in touch. I hope to be less reserved and build stronger online friendships with more people but I guess it's just a matter of pushing myself to be less shy. :D

I've never kept online friends as long as irl ones. I just can't fully connect with someone in a deep level unless I'm actually with them face-to-face.

I've made some friends, though not a lot. Though, a bunch of them I haven't talked to in a while...I've also had a friendship go up in flames in the worst ways possible.

I want to say that there are still some acquaintances, especially on PC, and I'm very grateful for that. Friendship is not a think people should take for granted. Well, I guess people who have an easy time making friends don't really have that much pressure in that regard. ^^"

Roni said:

I've never kept online friends as long as irl ones. I just can't fully connect with someone in a deep level unless I'm actually with them face-to-face.

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I felt exactly the same way. Unfortunately, I was born as the youngest with an age gap. It meant that if I wanted to know my older siblings, I needed to maintain an online relationship.

It worked out. I speak with them everyday through social media, and we video chat on holidays. If I'm lucky, they fly down or take a long train ride and I see them on Christmas.

It definitely helped me become accustomed to online communication.

I've met some incredible people online that I'm lucky to still have in my life. Some of these friendships have outlasted those I made in person. Many of them have even. There's no difference between friends made online and off in my mind.

My closest friends are all those I met online. I have only a couple of "friendships" offline, one of which hardly counts imo, and the other is my old best friend from elementary and middle school who I rarely talk to anymore. Ones that I've had offline have never lasted.

My oldest friendship is someone I actually met here on PC when we were really young. He and I have certainly had... Some kind of strange relationship. Unresolved things, boy meets girl, you know. But he's also one of my best friends.

My best friend is by far my writing buddy. I met her 6 years ago on DeviantArt and we just kinda connected immediately. First it was through our writing (hence: writing buddy), but then we connected through other interests, and have had deep discussions about politics and our beliefs. She's one of the very few people who actually know me.

And my final really close friend is another I met on DeviantArt through our writing. Her writing was so unique and special that I had to talk with her. And I'm so glad that I did. Though she and I haven't had deep talks like my writing buddy and I, she's still a very special and see person who I think about often.

I'm an extreme introvert, so having offline friendships drains me so much faster than online ones. I might be able to be in someone's physical presence for about 2 hours before my battery is totally depleted, but I can text my writing buddy all morning and be sad when she has to go. That said, it can still drain me. My guy friend and I texted pretty much constantly for about 3 days and then it all hit me all at once that I desperately needed alone time and stopped talking to him for like 2 days lmao. To be fair, this was right after we'd rekindled our friendship after not talking for like 4 years, but I way overdid it and nearly kicked my own ass.

It's kinda funny, my battery doesn't get drained like that with my husband. He's probably the only person who DOESN'T drain my batteries. I can't explain why, he just doesn't.

My online friends are my only real friends and I cherish them with all my heart. Whether we just chat for fun/memes/PC business or we've opened our hearts to one another.. I treasure all of them.

Online friendships have never worked for me, so I usually keep a decent amount of distance.

I have no difference making friends online and IRL, mainly due to not being any different... but it confuses me that people don't run at the mere sight of my insanity :x

online friends? what are those, can't be real


(jk i love every one of my friends on this site, this is honestly where i've met most of my nerdy buds and i wouldn't live as happy a life as i do without you guys. whenever an online friend takes the time of their day to DM / VM me or even just say hi directed to me in a group channel it always makes me feel warm and happy, and i'm sorry if i'm sometimes bad at writing back)

(idk why i'm such a sappy mess today lol)

(<3)


So, short answer: yes. I've made many notable and important friendships online. They're no less real or significant for me than face-to-face relationships.

This always sounds so sad when I say it, but... I've never had a friend in-person, not once. All my friends have been made online. That's because I've grown up isolated and still am, and on top of my social anxiety, making friends is near impossible around here.

Still, my online friendships have kept me going through thick and thin, and they mean just as much to me as having offline friends! I owe PC for that. Some of my favourite memories are bonding with other Pokémon Trivia regulars throughout 2015-2018, when the section was at its peak. One of them became my best friend in the whole world, and then eventually, the love of my life! So it goes to show how deep online connections can be. <3

I won't lie, I feel like the friendships I've made online are a lot stronger than ones I've had in person. It helps that I'm super introverted and literally can't deal with people if I'm not in the mood, so the lax nature of online chats has only worked to my benefit! There's even a someone from Europe (I'm Australian) whom I love like one of my own sisters, which honestly has to be the best friendship I've known to date.

i have a few online friendships that have lasted for more than 10 years and i couldn't be more thankful for them. sometimes they'd grown rough or we lost touch, but today they've been maintained through different channels of communication

I have had a fair few online friendships that have lasted for years and we lost touch.

My longest online friendship is actually with fellow member, Sckewi. We met on the Nintendo of Europe forums back in 2003 - so we've been friends now for almost 20 years.

I do agree with most of you that online and offline friendships can be practically indistiguishable... in the sense that you can make both good and bad friends online, just like in real life.

My friends right now are some of my closest and they're some of the kindest, most level-headed people I've met, but I've also managed to attract some nasty people, especially when I was still on mass social media like Tumblr or Twitter. It's true that I was foolish enough to enable these people's bad behavior due to inexperience and a fear of being abandoned (especially with my longest-term friends), but after cutting ties with them, I'm slowly coming to terms with the fact that most of the problem was them, not me. Now, I'm grateful for the fact that I still hold online friendships in high regard despite all these setbacks. I'm just far more guarded about who I spend my time with, but I'm open to making more friends even if I spend less time online.

Friends are that, friends, whether online or IRL. I have made a number of very close friends over the internet. Some of them I lost contact with (because I suck at keeping in touch with people), but I'll always cherish the great memories of times together here on the forums. Then there's also a bunch of people I still talk to a multiple times a week, a lot more than basically every IRL friend.

And on top of that I have also started the process of converting online friends to real-life friends with meetups, which is super exciting! So yeah, the line between the two is now blurrier than ever, haha! :D

Lycanthropy said:

Friends are that, friends, whether online or IRL.

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I came here to say exactly that.

I have met some wonderful people online, and some monsters in real life, the same is true the other way around too.

A friend is a friend to me <3

I've had some good friendships I made online, though most have faded over the years because we grew apart or stopped using the same websites, and I developed some anxiety issues that made it hard for me to properly maintain my relationships with them, which, I think I will always feel guilty about. But those friendships had big and good impacts on me, and I'm glad to have had those friends when I did.

In addition to those though, I also met my best friend in the entire world online, 10 years ago this April. She means everything to me and has been such an amazing influence on my life, I genuinely can't imagine where I would be or the person I would be if we never became friends. She's amazing and the truest friend I could ever ask for, online or off. It just absolutely sucks that we live so far apart because it means we can't do as much physically together. xc If I was able to I would move closer to her in a heart beat, and I want to travel to visit her as soon as I'm able to (or get her to come visit here, so we can go see whale sharks together~). When I do get to go visit her (and she's fully done with her training for it), I'm super excited about getting a tattoo done by her! It's gonna be my very first one and I can't wait. :D